The cottage industry census of 1894/95 covered in all districts of the province 8,991 artisan families (not counting families of hired workers), that is, approximately 72% of the total number of Perm artisans, as researchers estimate, counting additionally some 3,484 families. The basic subdivision of artisans by type, adopted in the "Essay," consists of distinguishing two groups of artisans (in the tables denoted by Roman numerals I and II), namely those having agricultural operations (I) and those not having them (II); then three subgroups of each group (Arabic numerals: 1, 2, 3), namely: 1) artisans working for free sale; 2) artisans working for consumer-customers, and 3) artisans working for customer-buyers. In the two latter subgroups raw materials are supplied predominantly to the artisan by the customer. Let us dwell somewhat on this grouping. The division of artisans into agriculturists and non-agriculturists is, of course, entirely sound and necessary. The abundance of landless artisans in Perm province, often concentrated in factory settlements, compelled the authors to carry out this grouping systematically and introduce it into the tables. We learn, thus, that 1/3 of the total number of artisans (in 8,991 establishments 19,970 family and hired workers), namely 6,638 persons, belong to those not having agricultural operations [175]. Already from this one can see, consequently, the inaccuracy of the usual assumptions and assertions about the connection of cottage industry with agriculture as a general phenomenon—a connection sometimes even elevated to a peculiarity of Russia. If one excludes from the number of "artisans" improperly classified urban and rural craftspeople, then of the remaining 5,566 families—the landless number 2,268, that is, more than 2/5 of the total number of those working for the market. Unfortunately, even this fundamental grouping is not consistently maintained in the "Essay." First, it is provided only for proprietor-artisans; for hired workers no such data exist. This gap is the result of the fact that the cottage industry census altogether omitted hired workers and their families, registering only establishments, only proprietors. In the "Essay" the expression "families engaged in cottage trades" is used very imprecisely instead of these terms, since families sending out hired workers to artisans, of course, are no less "engaged in cottage trades" than families hiring workers. The absence of household data on families of hired workers (their number equals 1/4 of the total number of workers)—is an important gap in the census. This gap is very characteristic of the Populists, who take up immediately the standpoint of the small producer and leave hired labor in the shadow. Below we shall encounter more than once gaps in information about hired workers, and for now we shall confine ourselves to the remark that although the absence of data on families of hired workers is a customary phenomenon in the literature of cottage trades, there are exceptions. In the works of Moscow zemstvo statistics one sometimes encounters data systematically collected about families of wage-laborers; there is even more such data in the well-known investigation by Messrs. Kharizomenov and Prugavin: "Trades of Vladimir Province," where there are also household censuses registering families of hired workers equally with families of proprietors. Second, having included in the number of artisans a mass of landless industrialists, the researchers naturally undermined the basis of the usual, completely incorrect practice—excluding from the number of "artisans" urban industrialists. And we see, indeed, that in the cottage industry census of 1894/95 one city, Kungur, entered (p. 33 of tables), but only one. There are no explanations in the "Essay," and it remains unknown why only one city and precisely this one entered the census, whether by chance or on some grounds. A considerable confusion results, greatly spoiling the general data. On the whole, the cottage industry census repeats, consequently, the usual Populist error of separating the village ("artisan") and the city, although a known industrial district frequently embraces both the city and surrounding settlements. It would long since be time to discard this separation, based on prejudice and on the exaggeration of obsolete estate barriers.

We have mentioned more than once already craftspeople, rural and urban, sometimes distinguishing them from artisans, sometimes including them in their number. The fact is that these oscillations are inherent in all literature on "cottage" trades, proving the uselessness of such a term as "artisan" for scientific research. The generally accepted opinion is that artisans should be classed only as those working for the market, only as commodity-producers, but in practice it is not easy to find an investigation of cottage trades where craftspeople—that is, those working for consumer-customers (the 2nd subgroup according to the "Essay")—do not end up in the number of artisans. In both the "Proceedings of the Commission for the Investigation of Cottage Industry" and in the "Trades of Moscow Province" you will encounter craftspeople among the "artisans." We consider it useless to dispute the meaning of the word "artisan," since, as we shall see below, there is no form of industry (except perhaps machine industry) which is not subsumed under this traditional term, absolutely useless for scientific research. It is indisputable that one must strictly distinguish commodity-producers working for the market (1st subgroup) from craftspeople working for consumers (2nd subgroup), since these forms of industry represent entirely heterogeneous types in their social-economic significance. The attempts of the "Essay" to smooth over these distinctions are very unfortunate (cf. p. 13, 177); it was much more correctly noted in another zemstvo-statistical publication on Perm artisans that "craftspeople have very few points of contact with the sphere of cottage industry—fewer than the latter has with factory industry" {80}. Both factory industry and the 1st subgroup of "artisans" belong to commodity production, which does not exist in the 2nd subgroup. Equally strictly one must distinguish the 3rd subgroup—artisans working for buyers (and manufacturers), which differ essentially from "artisans" of the two first subgroups. One cannot but wish that all investigators of the so-called "cottage" industry would strictly maintain this division and use precise political-economic terms instead of arbitrarily attributing meaning to colloquial terms.

Let us give data on the distribution of "artisans" by groups and subgroups:

Before drawing conclusions from these data, let us recall that the city of Kungur entered into Group II, thus containing mixed data on rural and urban industrialists. We see from the table that agriculturists (Group I), predominating considerably in number among rural industrialists and craftspeople, prove to be more backward in the development of forms of industry than non-agriculturists (Group II). Primitive crafts are far more developed among agriculturists compared with production for the market. Greater development of capitalism among non-agriculturists is expressed in a larger percentage of hired workers, establishments with hired workers, and artisans working for buyers. One may conclude, consequently, that connection with agriculture retards the more backward forms of industry and, conversely, that the development of capitalism in industry leads to a break with agriculture. Unfortunately, we do not have precise information on this subject and must content ourselves with such suggestive indications. For instance, we do not learn from the "Essay" how the rural population of Perm province is distributed generally between agriculturists and the landless, and therefore cannot compare in which of these categories trades are more strongly developed. Also neglected is an extremely interesting question about industrial districts (the investigators had very precise data on this, for each settlement separately), about the concentration of industrialists in non-agricultural, factory, generally commercial-industrial settlements, about the centers of each branch of industry, about the spread of trades from these centers to surrounding settlements. If we add to this that household data on the time of emergence of establishments (on this below, § III) made it possible to determine the character of the development of trades, that is, whether they spread from centers to surrounding settlements or vice versa, whether they spread more strongly among agriculturists or among non-agriculturists, etc., then one cannot but regret the insufficient elaboration of the data. All that we can obtain on this question is information about the distribution of trades by districts. To acquaint the reader with this information, let us use the division of districts into groups proposed in the "Essay" (p. 31): 1) "districts with the highest percentage of artisans working for the market, and at the same time with a relatively high level of development of cottage industry"—5 districts; 2) "districts with a relatively weak degree of development of cottage trades, but with a predominant number of artisans working for the market"—5 districts; and 3) "districts also with a low level of development of cottage industry, but in which artisans working on consumer commission frequently predominate"—2 districts. Bringing together the most important data according to these groups of districts, we obtain the following table:

1) In the 1st group: the districts of Shadrinsk, Kungur, Krasnoufimsk, Yekaterinburg, and Osinsky; in the 2nd—Verkhotursk, Perm, Irbit, Okhansk, and Cherdyn; in the 3rd—Solikamsk and Kamyshlovsky.

2) We call "dependent" artisans: a) hired workers and b) household members working for buyers.

3) The number of artisans here is not the same as was given above, since the district figures in the "Essay" (p. 30–31) differ from the totals in the table placed in the appendix.

This table gives us the following interesting conclusions: the more developed rural industry is in a group of districts, the 1) smaller the percentage of rural craftspeople, that is, the more craft is pushed aside by commodity production; 2) the greater the percentage of artisans belonging to the non-agricultural population; 3) the stronger capitalism develops, the greater the percentage of dependent artisans. In the third group of districts rural craftspeople predominate (77.7% of all artisans); alongside this the agriculturists predominate here (only 5.7% non-agriculturists) and capitalism is developed insignificantly: altogether 7.2% hired workers and 2.7% household-member artisans working for buyers, that is, altogether 9.9% dependent artisans. In the second group of districts, on the contrary, commodity production predominates, which already pushes aside craft: only 32.5% craftspeople. The percentage of agriculturist artisans drops from 94.3% to 66.2%; the percentage of hired workers rises more than fourfold: from 7.2% to 32.1%; there is also a rise, though not so significant, in the percentage of household members working for buyers, so that the total percentage of dependent artisans constitutes 38.4%—almost 2/3 of the total number. Finally, in the first group of districts craft is pushed back even further by commodity production, occupying only 1/5 of the total number of "artisans" (21.8%), and alongside this the number of non-agricultural industrialists rises to 42.1%; the percentage of hired workers drops somewhat (from 32.1% to 26%), but in enormous proportions the percentage of household members dependent on buyers rises, namely from 6.3% to 27.4%, so that altogether dependent artisans turn out to be more than half—53.4%. The district of the largest (in absolute and relative numbers) number of "artisans" proves to be the district of greatest development of capitalism: the growth of commodity production pushes craft into the background, leads to the development of capitalism and to the transition of trades into the hands of non-agriculturists, that is, to the separation of industry from agriculture (or, perhaps, to the concentration of trades in the non-agricultural population). The reader may have doubts whether it is correct to consider capitalism more developed in the first group of districts, where there are fewer hired workers than in the second, but more working for buyers. Work at home, it may be objected, is a lower form of capitalism. We shall see, however, below, that many of these buyers consist of manufacturers, owning large capitalist establishments. Work at home appears here as an appendage of the factory, signifying greater concentration of production and capital (200–500, up to a thousand or more persons work for some buyers), greater division of labor, and being, consequently, a higher form in degree of development of capitalism. This form is related to the small workshop of a proprietor with hired workers as capitalist manufacture is related to capitalist simple cooperation.

The data presented sufficiently refute the attempts of the compilers of the "Essay" to set in principle "the artisan form of production" in opposition to "capitalist"—an argument repeating the traditional prejudices of all Russian Populists with Messrs. V. V. and N. —ov at their head. The "fundamental distinction" between these two forms the Perm Populists find in the fact that in the first "labor possesses the instruments and materials of production and at the same time all the results of labor in the form of products" (p. 3). We are now already able to state with complete certainty that this is false. Even if we include in the number of artisans the craftspeople as well, still the greater part of the "artisans" does not fit these conditions: they do not fit, first, the hired workers, and there are 25.3% of them; they do not fit, second, household members working for buyers, since neither the materials of production nor the results of labor belong to them and they receive only piece-rate wages; there are 20.8% of such; they do not fit, third, household members of the 1st and 2nd subgroups who keep hired workers, since they possess the "results" not only of their own labor. There are probably about 10% of such (of the 6,645 establishments of the 1st and 2nd subgroups 1,691, that is, 25.4%, keep hired workers; in 1,691 establishments there are probably no fewer than 2,000 household members). Total then: 25.3% + 20.8% + 10% = 56.1% of "artisans," that is, more than half do not fit these conditions. In other words, even in such a remote and backward economically province as Perm, already the "artisan" predominates who either is hired out, or hires others, or exploits, or is exploited. But it is far more correct for such a calculation to exclude crafts and take only commodity production. Craft is such an archaic form of industry that even among our own Populists, who have more than once uttered that backwardness is Russia's blessing (à la Messrs. V. V., Yuzhakov and Co.), there was not a man who boldly and directly ventured to defend it and to set it up as the "pledge" of his ideals. In Perm province craft is still very developed compared with central Russia: it suffices to refer to such a trade as indigo dyeing (or dyeing in general). This is exclusively artisanal dyeing of home-woven fabrics of peasants, which in less remote parts of Russia long ago yielded place to factory calicoes. But even in Perm province craft is already pushed far into the background: even in rural industry only 29.5%, that is, less than a third, belong to craftspeople. Excluding craftspeople, we get 14,401 working for the market; of them 29.3% hired workers, and 29.5% household members working for buyers, that is, 58.8% dependent "artisans," and 7–8 per cent proprietors with hired workers, that is, altogether about 66%, two-thirds of "artisans," possessing two basic similarities, not differences, with capitalism, namely: first, they are all commodity-producers, and capitalism is only commodity economy developed to completion; second, the greater part of them stands in the relations of buying and selling of labor-power characteristic of capitalism. The compilers of the "Essay" strive to convince the reader that hired labor in "artisan" production has special significance and is explained, supposedly, by "respectable" causes; we shall examine in its place (§ VII) these assurances and the examples they cite. Here it suffices to establish that where commodity production prevails and hired labor is used not by chance but systematically, there are present all the features of capitalism. One can speak of its undevelopedness, its embryonic character, of its special forms, but to regard as "fundamental distinction" that which in fact exhibits fundamental similarity means to distort reality.

Let us note, in passing, one more distortion. On page 5 of the "Essay" it is said that "the artisan's products… are prepared from materials acquired principally on the spot itself." Precisely on this point there are data in the "Essay" for verification, namely a comparison of how artisans processing animal products are distributed throughout the districts of the province relative to livestock and agricultural products; artisans processing vegetable products relative to the distribution of forest; artisans processing metals relative to the distribution of cast iron and iron extracted in the province. It turns out from this comparison that in the processing of animal products in three districts there is concentrated 68.9% of artisans of this type, while livestock in these same districts is only 25.1%, and sown acres only 29.5%, that is, it turns out to be exactly the opposite, and in the "Essay" it is immediately stated that "the high degree of development of productions based on the processing of animal products is assured principally by imported raw materials, for example, in Kungur and Yekaterinburg districts—raw hides, processed by local tanneries and artisanal tanneries, from which precisely the material for boot-making comes, the chief of the cottage trades of these districts" (24–25). Cottage industry is based here, consequently, not only on the large-scale operations of local capitalists in the hide trade, but also on the acquisition from factory owners of semifinished materials, that is, cottage industry proved to be the result, the appendage of developed commodity circulation and capitalist tanneries. "In Shadrinsk district the imported raw material is wool, which provides material for the chief trade of the district—felt-making." Further, in the processing of vegetable products 61.3% of artisans are concentrated in 4 districts. Meanwhile in these same 4 districts there is altogether 20.7% of the total forest acreage in the province. On the contrary, in the 2 districts in which 51.7% of the forest is concentrated, there are altogether 2.6% of artisans processing vegetable products (p. 25), that is, here too it turns out to be exactly the opposite, and here the "Essay" establishes that the raw material is imported (p. 26) {82}. We observe, consequently, a very interesting fact: that the development of cottage trades is preceded by (being the condition of this development) commodity circulation that has already struck deep roots. This circumstance is very important, because it, first, indicates how long ago commodity economy was already established, in which cottage industry is merely one of its components, and how absurd therefore to depict our cottage industry in the form of some tabula rasa {83}, which supposedly "could" still follow various paths. The researchers report, for example, that the Perm "cottage industry continues to reflect the influence of those communication routes which determined the commercial-industrial character of the region not only in the pre-railroad but even in the pre-reform era" (p. 39). Indeed, the city of Kungur was a node of communication routes in the Cis-Urals: through it runs the Siberian tract, connecting Kungur with Yekaterinburg, and by branches with Shadrinsk as well; through Kungur also runs another commercial tract—the Goroblagodat, connecting Kungur with Osa. Finally, the Birsk tract connects Kungur with Krasnoufimsk. "Thus, we see that the cottage industry of the province was concentrated in districts determined by nodes of communication routes: in the Cis-Urals—in Kungur, Krasnoufimsk, and Osinsky districts; and in the Trans-Urals—in Yekaterinburg and Shadrinsk districts" (p. 39). Let us remind the reader that precisely these 5 districts constitute the first, by development of cottage industry, group of districts and that in them is concentrated 70% of the total number of artisans. Second, this circumstance indicates to us that the "organization of exchange" in cottage industry, about which cottage-trade advocates so frivolously prattle, has in fact already been created and created by no one other than all-Russian merchant capital. Below we shall see not a few further confirmations of this. Only for the third category of artisans (processing metals) does there appear a correspondence in the distribution of raw material extraction and its processing by artisans: in the 4 districts in which 70.6% of cast iron and iron are extracted, there is concentrated 70% of artisans of this category. But here the raw material is already itself a product of large-scale mining industry, which has, as we shall see, "its own views" on the "artisan."